


sharp memories, faded and soft

by seraphcelene



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: American Songbook, Billie Holiday - Freeform, Childhood, Childhood Trauma, Daryl Dixon and Merle Dixon are Young, Daryl Dixon with a side of Beth Greene, Doris Day, Ella Fitzgerald - Freeform, Episode: s04e13 Alone, Gen, Mama Dixon has issues, Merle Dixon Being an Asshole, Missing Scene, So does Papa Dixon, nina simone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-09-06 04:18:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16824988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seraphcelene/pseuds/seraphcelene
Summary: "His mama singingQue Sera, SeraandDream a Little Dreamalong with the radio. Sometimes Ella Fitzgerald while she flips pancakes and the sun shines in through the window over the sink." Once upon a time, even Daryl Dixon had a childhood. Pre-Walking Dead dream-memory set during 4.13 - Alone.Warning for language!





	sharp memories, faded and soft

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Many, many thank yous to lettered for the beta.  
> Disclaimer: The Walking Dead and all associated characters are the property of Robert Kirkman, AMC, et al. I'm just taking them out for a little exercise.

Beth picks out a song on the piano, slow, easy and low as the candlelight. Daryl lays back in the coffin, soft, white, and thinks of all the ways that he could have died before now. He pretends to be asleep, watches her through the tangle of his hair. 

She's all the light in the world rounded up and siphoned into a girl he knows he ain't got no business looking at. Pretty and surprisingly clean, like dirt don't stick to her. Looking down at his shirt, at his hands and the unnamed dark crammed beneath his nails, it seems like dirt ain't got nothin' better to do than to stick to Daryl Dixon. 

He wipes his hands on his shirt and not a lick changes.

Merle would say something slick and mean and crude and Daryl can feel the heat rising in his face at the thought.

And then maybe he really does fall asleep, chewing on the edge of his thumb nail, Beth's voice, sweet and soft, follows him down into his dreams.

Sunshine flooding the kitchen and the chipped yellow walls are drowned in light so that they look near white. It's almost too bright, and Daryl sits on the floor, in a corner, out of the way after his mama drops him for the third time. She's dancing alone, now, hands hanging at her sides and her tear-stained, snot streaked face is turned up to the ceiling, to the sky, to the sun that only comes in through the window. The cotton house-dress she wears is almost bleached through. She's naked underneath and he can see the shadow of her nipples through the threadbare cotton.

“Mama's got the mean reds,” she tells him and puts on another record.

He's only six and the mean reds mean absolutely nothing and won't until he's ten and laid up with the flu. Stretched out on the couch of a woman down the road that Merle pays to keep an eye on him while he gets better. She's in the back, working a still and Daryl is too lazy and too tired to get up and change the channel, so he watches _Breakfast at Tiffany's_ and falls in love with Audrey Hepburn's clear, wide eyes.

“I can't find the sun no more, baby,” she says and says Nina will help her find her way.

Those are bad days. When it's nothing but Nina Simone and Billie Holiday on the record player and all Mama wants to do is sit at the kitchen table and stare through the smudged dirt on the window. Daryl lies under the table, his head on her bare feet, counting her toes over and over again. 

“Sit there count the raindrops falling on you.” She sings, track after track, until her voice falters, thinning out, and the cigarette burns down to her fingers.

Sometimes, his father stumbles home, still drunk from the night before, reeking of stale alcohol and sweat. He backhands Mama to the floor. 

“What you doin' playing that nigger music,” he growls, spittle flying. “Shut that shit off.” 

He falls asleep in the armchair not even ten minutes later.

Daryl makes sure his father is asleep, listens for the rumbling snore, before finally crawling out from beneath the table. He takes the towel looped through the handle of the refrigerator and uses the stool beside the sink to reach the faucet. He's still too short to reach the ice in the freezer, so he soaks the towel with cold water. Cradles his mama's head in his lap and gently dabs at the blood around her nose and mouth.

There's no pancakes or lunch on those days, just his mother crying at the kitchen table and his father's angry fists. Merle inevitably shows up and drags Daryl out from beneath the table. Takes him into the woods and teaches him about hunting and tracking things.

On other days, better days, she scratches her fingers through his hair and asks, “Pancakes for breakfast, baby?”

The sun is high in the sky and Daryl's just big enough to read the time on the wall clock.

“It's lunchtime, Mama,” he says.

“Is it?” His mama looks unsteadily at the clock, then smiles, dreamy and heavy-eyed -- “I must've slept late. Pancakes for lunch, then?” 

Those are Doris Day days. His mama singing _Que Sera, Sera_ and _Dream a Little Dream_ along with the radio. Sometimes Ella Fitzgerald while she flips pancakes and the sun shines in through the window over the sink.

She dances with him and doesn't drop him. Grabs him up and swings him around the kitchen.

“Heaven, I'm in heaven,” she sings, her voice high and sweet as she turns them in circles, in and out of blinding swaths of sunshine. 

Daryl clings to her neck, laughing until he can't breathe. She swings him down to the floor or settles him on her hip even though she keeps saying how he's getting too big to carry.

“Daryl, get the juice out the fridge and set the table for me, will you?”

He scrambles to do it. Concentrating so that he doesn't spill any of the orange juice. 

While she cooks, Daryl sits on the floor out of the way or under the kitchen table, scribbling on a scrap of discarded paper with a hand full of broken crayons. His mama takes those pieces of shit and pins them to the icebox door like they're something that belongs in a goddamned museum. But his old man, he comes home and knocks the pictures to the floor without noticing, reaching into the icebox for a beer. 

Merle kicks Daryl's ass besides.

“It's for your own good, baby brother,” Merle snarls and slaps him, palm wide and open until Daryl's old enough to hit back.

Pain explodes in his face and Daryl feels the spurt of blood from his nose. He lies in the dirt and wishes for his mother to come out and save him.

“She's gonna turn you into some fag art- _tiste_.” Merle says artist hard and mean. He laughs loud, head thrown back. “That what you want, baby brother? To be an art- _iste_ with a rich, fancy boyfriend paying your way while you take it up the ass and paint pictures to put on the wall?”

Daryl doesn't answer questions like those. Merle doesn't ask them to get an answer. Daryl looks towards the front of the house and waits for his mother who never comes.

“Better you come with me.” Merle reaches down and yanks Daryl to his feet. Uses the hem of his t-shirt to wipe the blood off his face. “C'mon. I got some traps set in the woods. I'll show you how to check 'em.”

*

Daryl jerks awake, the piano bench empty, and the candelabra at the foot of the casket the only light left in the room. The memory of Merle's fist turns his stomach and makes his heart pound. Sorrow chases the adrenaline, Merle's smirking mouth replaced by the image of his dead, faded eyes. 

Everything is quiet, peaceful in a way it hasn't been in a long time. Maybe it's the white walls or the satin lining the casket, the rows of chairs or the orderliness of all the rooms. 

Upstairs, the rooms are empty except for one. Beth lies curled in the center of a double bed. Rolled up in the blankets and all he can see is the gold of her hair peeking out the top. She's all sunshine and hope and affection. Daryl nods once, a silent kind of goodnight. He creeps closer, tugs the blanket down and tucks it carefully around her feet.


End file.
